Colonial Childhood Years

I was eight and my sister three when we set off on the SS Golfito to meet my mother's second husband in Trinidad. Nibby was his daughter, and as my father had left to later remarry when I was about two or three, this was effectively my new family. We had lived in Cambridge for about two years. My stepfather was finishing his degree in Geology after service in the RAF, and there being no grants for families, my mother worked as a ward orderly in a hospital, then set up in business for herself, making school uniforms at home.

My stepfather got a job in the oil business and had sent for us to join him. I don't remember much about the boat but it was certainly an adventure. When we finally arrived a couple of weeks later, the heat was stunning.

It was a humid heat, necessitating several showers and clothes changes every day. We lived in a wooden bungalow on legs. Underneath were the servants quarters - a couple of rooms, papered in old newspapers or magazines, where I spent many an hour reading disconnected and cut-off parts of articles. There were no washing machines, just a huge stone tub under the bungalow, and washing was done with grated soap and washboards, before being hung to dry over bushes in the garden.

There were many families in the oil business from the UK and other places, all in these bungalows on legs, with largeish gardens cut out from the bush. It was compulsory to have a nanny, and our cook, Olga, doubled in this role. A matter of pride was to have a nurses uniform, so our mother got out the sewing machine and ran up a uniform which would have done Guy's Hospital proud.

Childrens lives consisted of breakfast, school, supper and bed, except at weekends when the families would drive to the beach with a picnic, and many hours were spent in the sea.

We had holidays 'down the islands' where we took a boat to I think, Gran Gasparee, where we rented a bungalow only reachable by boat, for there were no roads. We had to take all of our supplies with us, and went fishing every day.

Once a week, a large dark sailing boat with black sails would pass the island. Apparently this was the boat taking lepers and supplies to the local leper colony on another nearby island. Many years later I met a woman who told me she had been brought up there: Chacachacare was the name of the island, and her father had been in charge of the colony, he was a medical missionary. She said the men and women lived separately, and the women made beautiful lace cloths, which were taken to the mainland and sold to help purchase food supplies for the colony. She said she had a very happy childhood there, and the inmates were happier than on the mainland where they would be shunned because of the disease. We found the boat very scary and disturbing.

Other passing boats were passenger liners, and we amused ourselves by waving at the passengers.

Back home again the adults were often at the Club, where they would socialise, no doubt drink far too much, and play tennis. We sometimes played tennis in the evenings and weekends.

But mostly, children hung about in tribes, wandering around in the bush, finding unusual fruit, trying to catch parrakeets and so on. I had a strange childhood habit: While Olga was taking Nibby out to the local playground to show off her smart uniform and chat to the other nannies, I used to go on marathon walks alone. If thirsty I would call at peoples' houses to ask for a glass of water. In this way, I discovered a whole world of lonely middle-aged (or so they seemed to me) ladies, who were delighted by this dubious diversion. I would be chatted to for hours, shown collections of embroidery, dolls, cactus, stamps, or whatever they had been doing, and plied with snacks and fruit.

Thinking back, it was an idyllic childhood, with almost total freedom to wander around, a lovely hot climate and because of the tropical rainstorms, endless greenery all around. The main downside was that Olga fed us baked beans for supper (eaten separately from the parents) for so long that I still cannnot look at a baked bean.

When we asked why we were not always allowed to play with the black children and we went to different schools we were told that this was the way things were. It was generally accepted that black people worked as servants and white people were the bosses. Though this was not always true: I saw at least one black couple as guests at the Club at Forest Reserve, and our schoolteacher, Miss Sinnanaan, was Asian. Once we were driving home and met with some carnival stragglers, all 'jumping up' i.e. dancing in the street. 'We don't want no white people here' some yelled, jostling the car rather hard, before we managed to drive past safely.

Back in dark postwar rainy England, even though attending a smart Torquay boarding school with plenty of green, lovely gardens and views, memories of Trinidad seemed like paradise to us.

We had worn very short pastel organdie dresses in Trinidad, all made by mother,far from the knee length heavy English materials, and we had spoken with strong Trinidadian accents and some local patois learned from the servants, all of this was to change by the time we had been 'back home' for a year or two.